For You I Have But Only My Soul
by Lana Archer
Summary: Do you believe in fate? Do you know what motivates it? Is it truly inescapable? What of our souls? What if they shattered and spread and all the little pieces landed on Earth and spent all their days seeking another part out? Is it still fate? Or a means to an end? Two worlds collide as Bamon and Ichabbie delve into their dynamic


**Note: **I don't know why it took me so long to find Sleepy Hollow. But I did and then _this_ happened.

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><p><em>I've lived on borrowed time<em>

_More than any man deserves_

_I've seen wonders beyond my wildest imaginings._

_And through these centuries, against the possibility that we would find each other –_

_We did. _

_And I am most grateful for it._

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><p><strong>A Slip Into Heaven<strong>

There are stories of our souls, tales that have been passed down since before the beginning of time. Tales that precede us all with their truths; their inevitabilities. Tales that were known before we could speak. Honesty hidden in the eyes of the child when they open wide and for the first time. Inescapable lines that are drawn around us. Lines that bind us hold us and make sure we follow their lead to where we must go. Take love for example – every step we take forward is another toward love. And when we reach it we are subsumed in it; in the victory of its presence upon us. We revel in it. If we fight destiny – it fights back; chaos surrounds and violence falls. If you deny yourself your destiny the world plots against you in your ignorance. You must remember who you are and what you need lest you spend eternity bathed in regret.

What stands before you when you most require comfort? Whose eyes glitter in your mind's eye when you think of the word '_hope'_? I know for myself that it is him and him alone. Every part of my soul was crafted in his name. Like he was for me. Every facet of his being formed and moulded to compliment and challenge mine. Like I am for him. He is exactly the right amount of love I need; the exact amount of passion, the exact amount of perfection, resilience, courage, strength and humour. He doesn't overwhelm me with his love, doesn't try to drown me in it. No, instead I find myself raised up, on the tops of his feet, so that we may see eye to eye when he kisses me. And he kisses me. As often as he sees fit. Which is absurd in its frequency. But this story, as much as it is about us, it is also not.

See. Our souls, his and mine, have been shattered in our love; that it's perfection may bleed into the realm of the humans. We're left in heaven to see out eternity; but those that have been sired by our love, those that were born and fated by our connection – they're scrambling. Chaos has descended them all by the one thing that brought them together, almost simultaneously throwing them apart – the Supernatural. With Ichabod and Abby. With Damon and Bonnie. There are more of them but my heart aches with every thought in their direction so I turn away…unable to see my kindred torn apart with every choice they submit themselves to. They are one in the same Abby and Bonnie and despite all the evidence to the contrary so are Ichabod and Damon…at least they were before Damon denied his destiny unlike Ichabod and got lost in his quest for absolution through obsession. It pains me to see my loves kindred become so lost…a constant reminder that it could have been him –

That could have been him without _me_.

_Hope_

"…_Bonnie_?" Damon's voice was thin; shredded with hopelessness and disbelief. If this wasn't real he didn't know what to do beyond this point. He'd run out of options about an hour ago and he didn't know what to do. He didn't know how to fix it and then, just like at the island, she came stumbling into view. Her eyes were unfocused and fluttering with their lids as she took in the sight of him. Her mouth trembled and a shaky breath raked her body as she stumbled to him. In a flash he was in front of her, catching her even though she wasn't exactly about to fall. "Bonnie, it's really you." Her shining eyes flickered to his face and she began to cry as she nodded. "And it's me, it's really me." He said, pulling her thoughtlessly to him, into a warm embrace so that he may be sure even so. She sagged into him and began to cry in earnest as he held her close, pulling her to him even tighter. Had she always been so small? Her arms wrapped up around his neck as she wailed and her knees gave out but nothing changed as he supported her weight with irrelevant ease.

"Damon." She managed to choke out as her body shook. She was broken with relief, so much so that it bordered on a swift hysteria. "You came back."

"Of course I did," He said, one hand behind her head as they sank to the ground as he cradled her, "I'm sorry you had to wait so long…I am so, so, sorry." It went on like that; the apologies, the reassurances, the relief. "That's never happening again." He vowed and despite it all, she believed him.

_Destiny_

Abby watched as Ichabod eyed out the elixir he'd lifted out of the wooden box the strange men had given to him. The _Masons_. She'd only _just_ met him, only _just_ grown to care for him – but like everyone else in her life, she was also about to _lose_ him. Her face crumpled as she held his gaze, even when he told her that it would be best for her to go. She'd never leave and she told him as much, she would at the very least get to say goodbye if she couldn't stop him from killing himself. There was always another way but it wasn't good enough for him. True to form he had to go and do the honourable thing, the 'just' thing, keep the burden of the world, the line between right and wrong balanced on his shoulders – and the weight was crushing him and the debris of chaos would bury him alive. And Abby was there, to watch apparently. It went against every fibre of her being to be idle. But she had run out of options, she had tried and she had failed and now he saw his death as the only option they had left.

"Who will fight with me?" She blurted suddenly and he wavered, he hardly ever did that. His blue eyes caught her watery brown ones. "Who will stand by me when you're gone? Who'll remind me to believe when I had to lose you in order to save the world? There is no justice in you paying the price for something you had _no_ control over."

"_Abby_," he said, using her name again, "This isn't about my justice but the justice of the world."

"In what world could this possibly be the only option? You were bound to the horseman for a reason –"

"Exactly my _poi_ –"

"And it's not this." Abby continued as if he hadn't spoken, "It's not your death. Your death is not your ultimate destiny. You said seven years Crane, not a handful of weeks." She stood up then and in a flash she had the bottle, "I won't let you lose yourself in the onus of what you think the world expects from you. The majority of us are all ungrateful to it in any case. I have an option and we're going to take it. If it doesn't work then we'll discuss this but until we've exhausted every –"

"There isn't _time_!" Ichabod burst, looking immediately shameful at the tone he'd taken with her. "He is coming Abby, and the death of us all comes with him."

"Then we die _together_!" She snapped with equal fervour, "No _one_ person should have to pay for our sins, no _one_ person should have to stand alone in a 'quest for our salvation', that's not what this is about. This about me and you Crane, the _two_ of us – saving the world together and if it means making you mad for what I'm about to do then so be it." Without another word she threw the elixir to the ground and snapped her eyes back to him.

"What have you done…?" Ichabod gasped.

_Hope_

When Damon pulled away he held the sides of Bonnie's face and did a full inventory.

"Tell me you're okay," he said urgently his voice low and strained, "Tell me that I didn't ruin everything when I messed up the last time looking for you – tell me you're still _Bonnie_, that you're still my favourite judgy little witch and that I did good." She opened her mouth to speak and he cut her off, "And _don't_. _Lie_." Her mouth clamped shut and she cast her eyes downward and Damon's undead heart twisted. He felt the familiar sting of disappointment, punctuated with actual tears in his eyes. He pulled away and it startled her.

"Damon…" even now she sought to soothe him and it seemed to be turning his insides into a pit of snakes, snapping rabidly at the rest of his person, the poison from their fangs spreading through him and it was unwinding him with a dizzying speed. "_Damon_?" When he spun around to face her his face was transformed and though her heart rate hiccupped and flopped a little she stood her ground, no matter how shakily. He could see her through his red hazed vision; smell her fear and loneliness, _taste_ her scent as it fell onto his tongue from his parted lips as he bore his teeth. Eerie moments of silence passed between them before it became too much for him to look at her as she stood before him. With small little boots housing her feet, black cotton tights and a white tank top with one of his shirts hanging from her shoulders loosely. The sight of her made him sick – all he'd ever done to her was hurt her and take from her and somehow, impossibly so, along the way he'd grown to love her. And somehow, impossibly so, despite it all, she loved him too. The truth of the absurdity rattled him and he screamed out, watching as she jerked backwards, her eyes wide and terrified. He pulled at his hair and he fell to his knees as his voice turned hoarse and he heard, distantly, shuffling over the forest floor and she sank down next to him and put her little hands on his shoulders. "Damon?" She whispered once he stopped, but he was groaning now, somehow everything had taken on a physical pain and he thought that if he looked at her again he must just rip his own head off. How was it that he was always granted absolution and yet she was denied every shred of happiness? It was sick, fuelled by his bone-deep want for redemption, the very same thing that had a hand in her downfall. She rubbed the sides of his face and he wanted the sensation to burn him, he wanted his skin to peel off instead of the soothing softness that followed in the wake of her caress.

"I'm sorry." He muttered again and she nodded even though he couldn't see her. "You should kill me." He said with equal intensity.

**She's all alone.**

His own voice rang in his head as he avoided her gaze even as she tried to lift his face so that their eyes could meet. He could oblige her. He couldn't put a face to the swirling vortex of emotion tearing him apart inside. She would never be okay and he stood by and watched. She'd never be okay and he'd failed her, more than once. She'd never be okay and she'd saved his life instead of her own. She'd never be okay and he couldn't help her. He wanted to help her. He loved her.

**Careful Damon, I might start to think you actually care.**

**She's all alone.**

**Careful Damon,**

**Alone.**

"Damon, please, you're not making any sense." His eyes met hers then and her heart skipped a beat in response to whatever she saw in them, he felt like every cell in his body was aflame and he wanted that…he wanted to die, he deserved to die. No one should live more than one life. Look at the consequences. "_Damon_?"

"_Kill_ me," he begged, his face warped with misery, "You have every right to and I have nothing more to live for. Stefan knows that I'll always love him, I finally righted that colossal mistake…there's nothing more to _me_ Bonnie. There's nothing more to me that makes sense, has substance, nothing that requires eternity. You should kill me and go home, the portal will open when you drink this," he revealed an elixir and held it out to her, "Leaving you behind made me realise just how selfish and hideous a person I am…I should never have been there with you in the first place. You saved me by taking me with you, saved me by sending me home and ….Bonnie I might hate you for that." She gasped again and he smelled as an acute pain and hurt spread through her with his words as his blue eyes bore into her green. "I am not worthy of redemption, I know this now." Her tears hadn't stopped but they seemed to increase somehow as she heard him out. Shaking her head she made their faces level, there in the middle of the forest and she held onto the sides of his face firmly.

"Damon. You saved me."

"It doesn't work like that, I shouldn't even be _alive_ right now, if that's what I really am –"

"Okay Edward Cullen," she sassed and his eyes flickered with something as she smiled softly and leaned in a little further, "You've pushed so hard to validate your existence through love and violence, all in the name of a Petrova…and that's fine. Don't regret that, don't regret things that hold meaning to you, or held meaning to you. Damon, you're one of the best people I know and that sounds ridiculous but it's true. Who is here to save me? Who listened to me talk for the first time in months? Who helped me redefine friendship? _You_ did Damon… And who appreciates me more than you, right now, in this moment?"

"No one." He answered instantly.

"No one." She echoed with a nod and a bitter smile. "And for that I cannot kill you, I cannot hate you, I cannot abandon you and I will never forget everything you've done for me – especially because of everything you've done to me _before_," she pressed her forehead to his, "If you're looking for your redemption just look at me, because I forgive you and I love you and I could never dream of a world without you in it," she pulled away then and grinned, "Who else would bore me to within an inch of my life with his awful jokes, snappy comebacks and sweet dance moves?"

"…You love me?" He echoed. She nodded.

"Of course I do."

"Why?"

"Because you're here right now, and I know our luck – the odds are always stacked up against us so if you got this right it means you moved heaven, earth and hell to find me here. You did, didn't you?"

"Of course I did." He replied.

"Then you love me as well."

"Of course I do." His response was instantaneous. She nodded and moved her hands back to his shoulders as she took stock of his appearance. The corners of her eyes tightened with curiosity and she curled her mouth upward.

"I don't want to go home," she said suddenly, "When we get back, the first thing I'm doing is leaving…and you're coming with me."

_Destiny_

When the Sin-Eater came in Abby almost collapsed with relief, she never thought she'd do what she just did and she wasn't sure Crane would forgive her. She couldn't just stand there and let him kill himself – her days of passive acceptance were over. When she stepped back into the room in the tunnels where he was and saw that he was okay her heart swelled and she ran to him, hugging him and chastising him staying true to form.

"You were right." He said as he rested his chin atop her head.

"I like to think so." She murmured as she pressed her cheek to his coat and drew in a breath, memorising every sensation, she wanted moments like these to be immortalised to her mind. She wanted that look in her sister's eyes when she apologised to be forever etched into her brain. Corbin's smile and Ichabod's warm assurances that they were the chosen ones; that they would overcome every madness. She felt him chuckle a bit at her words and she craned her neck to look up at him and smile.

"Don't ever do that to me again," she said, "and next time, _listen_ to me."

"And so I shall." He replied and then stilled momentarily as if something had just occurred to him. "Thank you Abby, for fighting for me."

"Of course." She smiled and then they sun slipped under – the Horseman's call.

_Heaven_

Their paths cross despite the odds, every single time and I watch with bated breath, waiting for them to uncover the truth. That love will find you no matter how often you try and deny yourself of it. Love only has one true form – and it is undeniable, infallible and persistent. It is healthy, assured, trustworthy and odd. Love cannot be commanded, it cannot be denied, no, not truly. Love will find all those I have sired and lead them onward to their destiny – onward to the truth. For now, we wait.

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><p><strong>End notes: <strong>I don't know where this came from but it popped up in my head and I figured why not. So I'll leave it here and see what you lot think. Stay excellent. XO


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